Mopar Engine Upgrades - Power Trip

The quest to improve an engine's performance has been going on ever since the second car was built. Nobody wants to have less than the next guy, so hunting for more power is an everyday occurrence. The problem with hunting for more power is that it usually costs money. If that money is improperly spent, the results are not only less than stellar, they are mentally deflating.

In order to keep you guys from feeling that you wasted your money, we continuously try to show you things that we tried, and whether or not we garnered the gains we were looking for. So in the spirit of research, we hooked up with Performance Injection Equipment in Georgetown, Delaware, as they have developed a performance top-end package that they tell us increases the horsepower of your small block engine.

According to P.I.E., they have taken the guess work out of buying the right parts. They can deliver you a package with different levels of performance, ranging from the daily driver to the weekend racer, all the way up to the all-out race vehicle. Chris tells us, "Our approach when designing these packages was not just to grab parts off the shelf and throw them in a box, but to actually develop and dyno-tune each package. At the heart of any engine, is the heads and camshaft. Our cylinder heads and camshafts are built to our specs". The packages come in two "kits," with either cast, or aluminum heads. There are also Stage 1 and Stage 2 kits within those choices.

We had the opportunity to follow along, as the guys installed one of their Stage 1 kits on a 360 in a Red Express pick up. The Stage 1 kit upgraded the truck to receive P.I.E.'s ported cast-iron heads, and a custom-ground camshaft with 218/226-degrees of duration at .050-inch, and lift of .525/.525-inch, all ground on a 110 lobe separation. Above the heads is a dual-plane, raised runner intake, and 1.6 roller rockers. You supply the carburetor you want to use. The kit is designed to be durable, with heavy duty .080-inch-wall hardened pushrods, new head bolts, and a new timing chain with tensioner. Making the kit complete are head, intake, and timing cover gaskets, guide plates, and screw-in studs.

The swap can be handled by the average wrencher in a weekend, but if you are concerned about doing it yourself, the guys at P.I.E. can do the install for you. When the guy's at PIE finished the install, a dyno session was prescribed, so we could verify if there was any improvement or not.

Costs for Stage 1 Kit (PN TEK-1LA): $3,250

With the engine reassembled, and the truck bolted to the Dyno, it was time to see if the changes actually made an improvement. We were surprised, when our initial baseline showed us 217.05 horsepower, and 298.33 lb-ft of torque. After the install, we found out that the PIE kit definitely put a little pep in our truck's engine, as we now had 342.23 horsepower, and 339.13 lb-ft of torque. Not did we gain more than 125 horsepower, but the additional 40.8 lb-ft of torque. Not bad for a day's work.

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1. Everything needed for the swap comes in the kit. Heads, cam, intake (you supply carburetor), gaskets, and all small parts are all ready to install. The heads in our Stage 1 kit are cast iron (aluminum are available), and come ported. The camshaft is a custom-ground unit from P.I.E., and the intake is dual-plane, raised runner design.

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2. Our test vehicle. The Lil Red was the fastest production vehicle of its time, but this upgrade will definitely give it more power. The 360 currently utilizes a factory four-barrel intake, .030-inch oversized cast pistons, a flat-tappet camshaft, and unported 915 heads.

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3. The Stage 1 cast heads from P.I.E. do not feature extensive port work, but the chamber is deshrouded, and the seats and valves, are given a performance cut.

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4. Intake is a dual plane design that features raised runner and plenum.

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5. Once out of the engine, the heads and camshaft are removed.

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6. Once the new heads are in place, a little touch up paint and then the intake is installed.